Latest News in Computer Technology 2014

Breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence

January 27, 2016 – 11:46 pm

The holy grail of artificial intelligence—creating software that comes close to mimicking human intelligence—remains far off. But 2014 saw major strides in machine learning software that can gain abilities from experience. Companies in sectors from biotech to computing turned to these new techniques to solve tough problems or develop new products.

The most striking research results in AI came from the field of deep learning, which involves using crude simulated neurons to process data.

Work in deep learning often focuses on images, which are easy for humans to understand but very difficult for software to decipher. Researchers at Facebook used that approach to make a system that can tell almost as well as a human whether two different photos depict the same person. Google showed off a system that can describe scenes using short sentences.

Results like these have led leading computing companies to compete fiercely for AI researchers. Google paid more than $600 million for a machine learning startup called DeepMind at the start of the year. When MIT Technology Review caught up with the company’s founder, Demis Hassabis, later in the year, he explained how DeepMind’s work was shaped by groundbreaking research into the human brain.

The search company Baidu, nicknamed “China’s Google, ” also spent big on artificial intelligence. It set up a lab in Silicon Valley to expand its existing research into deep learning, and to compete with Google and others for talent. Stanford AI researcher and onetime Google collaborator Andrew Ng was hired to lead that effort. In our feature-length profile, he explained how artificial intelligence could turn people who have never been on the Web into users of Baidu’s Web search and other services.

Machine learning was also a source of new products this year from computing giants, small startups, and companies outside the computer industry.

The Muse in the Machine: Computerizing the Poetry of Human Thought is a 1994 book by David Gelernter.
The premise of the book is that development of artificial intelligence requires a model of mind that encompasses not only logical thought, but also emotional thought (because emotion is associated with intuition and creativity).
Gelernter...